On Leading the Next Generation

Six Guidelines to Put Technology in its Proper Place

Special Note: One of the topics I often blog about is the incredible amount of information we consume every day via technology. Both you and I spend tremendous amounts of time reading articles, blogs, studies and stories from an almost unlimited number of sources.

As I know each of you have loads to read every day, my goal is to provide you with quality information as succinctly as possible. In saying this, I wanted to let you know that beginning next week, I plan to post three blogs per week instead of five. My hope is that this reduction will provide you with higher quality blogs while leaving you more time to continue learning and growing in other areas.

Your friend, Tim

Many people believe technology has its proper place in society. I would concur. But whatever we think about our high tech world, I think we can all agree it’s not going away. Technology plays a huge role in our lives, but we must put it in its proper role.

We must never allow technology (which represents a virtual world) to replace the real one. Case in point: a man from West Virginia recently drove his truck into a river and blamed his GPS for the accident. Yep. He really did.

He was driving at night, toward the Susquehanna River in Bradford County. His GPS told him to keep going, even though a sign told him the road ended. Hmmm. Do you believe the sign or the GPS? Sadly, it’s the second time this has happened in six months in that area. Fortunately for this 24-year old man, he was able to swim to the other side and get rescued. It’s a miracle he survived, as the water was a chilly 40˚.

Six Balancing Acts on Technology

May I remind you of some great guidelines we must give to our students?

1. Always balance tech-time with touch-time. The same amount of hours you spend in front of a screen should be spent with real people, face to face. This cultivates interpersonal skills and the ability to read facial and body language.

2. Always balance technical skills with soft skill development. Employers rarely worry about tech skills in new grads — they worry about their soft skills. These all fit into the category of emotional intelligence and predict future success.

3. For each Instagram or Facebook group you join, throw a party and host it. Have real conversations and make real human connections. This enables you to take initiative with people and learn how to truly serve others.

4. Balance the conversations you have in print (text) with conversations you have in person (verbal). Talking with people is more emotionally taxing but pays dividends, as it builds relationship “muscles” and patience with others.

5. For every person you “unfriend” on social media, force yourself to resolve conflict with a person. We live in a disposable world, where it’s easier to avoid problems than face them. Never end a close relationship with technology. That’s cowardice.

6. When present with people, make them a priority over the ones on your phone. (Unless you agree to reply to an important message). When you check your portable device, you communicate to those around you that there are other people more important than you.

One more thing: When you have to decide between a GPS instruction and a sign posted on a road (especially a construction sign), always go with the sign.

Our newest book is out:

12 Huge Mistakes Parents Can Avoid – It outlines practical and effective leadership skills for both parents and educators on how to avoid common pitfalls including:

-making happiness a goal instead of a by-product
-not letting students fail or suffer consequences
-praising their beauty and intelligence

1 Comment

Beth Haglinon September 3, 2014 at 1:48 pm

Great post! I agree that this is a need for our students today. I also believe we can intentionally help our students to see and feel that online people are “real” people. Matt Gomez states on his blog post (http://mattbgomez.com/we-should-be-doing-more-than-teaching-digital-citizenship/) that he likes to “have someone in our school be our first Skype contact and then have that person visit the room after the call. I want them to have a clear understanding we are chatting with real people.” This is a great example of one way that we can mesh the two worlds – spending face-to-face time with some of the same people we befriend digitally.

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